to the water people

"Mother always said that my sister Satsu was like wood. As rooted to the earth as a Sagura tree. But she told me I was like water. Water can carve its way, even through stone. And when trapped, water makes a new path."

anyone who loves delhi, will naturally find a friend in me. extra points if the love is over that for bombay. :) its a spiritual connect. delhi was not my home. it is my soul's space. somehow even as a teenager in bhutan i knew in my heart that i wanted to study in delhi and that i'd find my love in north campus. and even though i had hardly seen delhi then, it felt like my future. and now going back from anywhere will always mean 'to delhi'

stats lec cartoon

history and conflict

i thought here i would only see people who loved economics. instead i come upon this large number who are doing it cos its a way to get rich! back home those would have filled up MBA schools but here an economist is different. and so there are these people who understand nuts about the beauty of economics, and are therefore killing themselves over it. for what? money!!! and in the process they hold the teachers responsible for making their lives hell. and its very apparent that those teachers love their subject. i'm clearly biased here. and i do not fit in.

Frost - 'Departmental'

an ant on the tablecloth
ran into a dormant moth
of many times his size.
he showed not the least surprise.
his business wasn't with such.
he gave it scarcely a touch,
and was off on his duty run.
yet if he encountered one
of the hive's enquiry squad
whose work is to find out God
and the nature of time and space,
he would put him onto the case.
ants are a curious race;
one crossing with hurried tread
the body of one of their dead
isn't given a moment's arrest-
seems not even impressed.
but he no doubt reports to any
with whom he crosses antennae,
and they no doubt report
to the higher up at court.
then word goes forth in Formic:
"Death's come to Jerry McCormic,
our selfless forager Jerry.
will the special Janizary
whose office it is to bury
the dead of the commissary
go bring him home to his people.
lay him in state in sepal.
wrap him for shroud in a petal.
embalm him with ichor of nettle.
this is the word of your Queen."
and presently on the scene
appears a solemn mortician;
and taking formal position
with feelers calmly atwiddle,
seizes the dead by the middle,
and heaving him high in the air,
carries him out of there.
no one stands round to stare.
it is nobody's affair.

it couldn't be called ungentle.
but how thoroughly departmental.

waiting for a poem to rise in my heart. its welling up within. like that final moment when you expect it anytime. but noone ever said that the final moment can sometimes last ages. if only the sun stayed golden on my cheeks and the wind stopped howling. it may yet come. even the waiting is beautiful

a person's room has a spirit and character of its own. whether its in north campus, or an audience to the daily clatter of neighbourhood kannadiga life, or overlooking a dark back-lane between lil flats in a typical vk block, or in the surprising greenery in cluttered south delhi; i am carrying along this bodyless spirit with me. give it some time, and the essential clothing it begs you for, and so what if white blinds replace the indian curtains it loves; the room will breathe the same. more often than not i forget how much the outside world has changed, it feels so - the same. its as if i carried it with me in one of the 23kg boxes allowed and just put it down here. so what if this mattress cost me 10 times more and the wood is donated and scratched. it travels over time, back and forth in the past, while i daydream. and i am in all of those rooms at once

its nice to come back home early from work once in a while. to leave at 5:30 dot. so the roads are empty and i zoom past. except the bad flyover which makes my car jump like it was a toy. somthing in my body feels unhealthy whenever my car jumps over those potholes or when it makes extra sounds. like this once when my car ac was tripping every two minutes when halted, and my heart actually came to my throat with every trip. that for two days and i was in a frenzy, enough to take papa with me to samara hyundai, out of this world in okhla industrial area. seemed like we were traveling to a village. this, when papa hasnt been to the car servicier in ages, ravi always takes it. (dont interrupt by asking who ravi is now). so in the waiting room there, was a tv and this woman was watching a pathetically sadistic south indian movie dubbed in hindi called 'lok parlok'. with some evil woman's spirit entering different forms of life or nothingness, and plotting to finish off a couple cos the guy hadnt married her and she had killed herself in the fire. now if someone just stands in a fire and doesnt scream, and dies without becoming a naked spectacle first, thats quite something. anyway so the movie was full of huge scary eyes and screams and noises and fat bodies. i totally loathed it. and wanted to change the channel but no, the woman said it was coming to an end. which was an utter lie. and papa who was making faces (and comments) at the woman also started watching it. i was in fact having to maintain almost constant eye contact with him to get him off it. anyway i did manage to change it to dd news as soon as resolution got bad (pretending i was trying to correct it) and then papa managed to get more masala news. and the next hf n hr we must have heard the word 'bahubali' more than 15 times. that was the day after the election result. for once i did not get mad at the melodrama of the media.

anyway so coming back home early. with serious intentions of working at home once the comfortable shorts were on and the tummy had had an extra luxury of crapping in the evening. but now the word file lies forgotten in my pendrive and i've wasted half n hr again on facebook. looking at ppl's photos. even though circumstances plotted against my 'id' with my 'ego' with mtnl giving way just when desired. but i guess it finally bowed down in front of my strong intentions.

oh btw i had to drive backwards almost 100mts cos two approaches to my house within my colony were blocked by a truck each and when i finally managed to get front driving back again i had to get down and remove this extra huge pole blocking the road next to something dug up. and then put it back again thinking whether a car could trip over it like ppl do over ropes.

poetry, psychology and economics

"Had I been less definitely determined to start working, I might have made an effort to begin right away. But because my resolve was absolute and, within twenty-four hours, in the empty frames of the next day where everything fit so well since I was not yet there, my good resolutions would easily be accomplished, it was better not to choose an evening where I was ill disposed for a beginning to which, alas! the following days would turn out to be no more propitious."

that's proust on procrastination through tirole on a self-confidence model. sometimes only a long sentence can express things accurately.

punchline

two college friends on gchat after years bothered to actually talk beyond a hi -

friend 1: how u doing married n all
friend 2: great re
having fun here in dubai
joined a mkt research firm
doing some work....dying to get back home...nice place dubai
for youngsters
like mumbai
lots of short drives around the emirate...
lots of weekend trips....discs...pubs....malls...big buildings
jus like aamchi mumbai :)
friend 1: :)
v good
friend 2: and full on masti coz no more deadlines or late night worries...
coz im married na...have a male escort 24/7
lol

semal

its the semal tree. its a pure wonder. more than the lovely shade outside my kitchen window. in winter it dispensed off with all its greenery and suddenly turned into this brown skeleton with red, huge red, flowers. dotted along the entire structure of the tree(s). the flowers were a major hit with all the birds apparently for their sticky sweetness. i just loved the sight of those bunches of red from the heights of my staircase landing. and they'd plop down every once in a while and litter the entrance to the building and would bleed their stickiness underfoot. i managed to get a couple of the lucky charms out of it which give the first velvety hints of it being a cotton tree. we could sometimes sight never-before-seen birds on the tree. and then by the end of the cold season the flowers were all gone. and some greenness returned. and now with the leaves there are these random fruits on the branches. brown buds. just brown mysterious buds. that make you wonder where the famous cotton is that you associated the name of the tree with. and then suddenly one morning my mom pointed out a neat big flower of white cotton bursting out of one of those brown buds. the cotton was stacked like thick rose petals with a halo of fluff around it. and the next day it was all fluff and now its all rolling in the air just an inch above the ground. with numerous lumps of fluff out of each cotton fruit. each of these has a small brown seed in the center. and if you manage to catch bulk of a cotton flower you get a brown walnut-like skeleton within. its a pure wonder - the tree. and why all that nectar if the final produce was fluff? did the sweetness become these strands of white? something like the cobwebs we used to make out of squeezed orange juice from the peels i guess

10th day!!! and they proudly announce it will continue. they are trying an experiment. acting on a whim. and killing innocents in the bargain. its like animal testing for a new drug. who cares how many die if their whim, their superiority is proven. and the United States backs the claim of self defence. self defence against odd home made rockets. 10 day offensive! air strikes and now army on the ground.

its so obvious isn't it. they've made this an excuse to claim their promised land. they are happy to make this into a reason for war. they are bloody cocky about it.

and we, the Indian government grant Gaza aid for the victims. what heroism. to make up for the guts we never had, to object to what's wrong.

as usual the world will continue to churn out yet more militants. till... probably one side to the war cripples itself without the other's effort. its not possible to finish a religion from the world. so probably it will be possible to finish anti feeling for that religion. very often the world like a thermostat corrects itself...